A decade of research on cognitive instruction has shown that training which is based on a thorough understanding of task requirements can raise performance of the mentally retarded to levels that could never be achieved without training. Recently, investigators have shifted their training from subordinate skills required for a particular task's performance to superordinate skills that invok and organize subordinate processes. The reasons for this change are first, retarded persons often possess but fail to use the subordinate processes necessary for good performance, and second, the instruction used to induce good performance is simple, yet the resuting performance gains are swift and dramatic. Despite numerous report of improvements in the task-specific performance of mentally retarded persons, there have been few reports of transfer of trained skills to related tasks. In those few instances where transfer has occurred, superordinate, as well as subordinate, processes have been trained. The purpose of our work is to test the proposition that intellectual development in general and normal/retarded differences in particular are more centrally related to the superordinate processes responsible for designing problem-solving strategies than to the subordinate mechanisms from which the strategies are composed. To this end, we have constructed graded instructional sequences for each of five tasks (circular recall, multiple associates, balance beam, inclined plane, series completion). Our hypothesis is that children who are instructed in the use of superordinate processes will need less complete task-specific training than those who are not given superordinate instruction. We also hope to demonstrate that children who show independent evidence of the use of superordinate skills are adjudged to be more intelligent or standardized intelligence tests and require less complete task-specific instruction (to achieve high levels of proficiency) than children who show less use of superordinate processes.